Old shoes will serve a
hero longer than they have served his
valet, if a hero ever has
a valet, bare feet are older than
shoes, and he can make
them do. Only they who go to soirees
and legislative halls must
have new coats, coats to change as
often as the man changes
in them. But if my jacket and
trousers, my hat and
shoes, are fit to worship God in, they
will do; will they not?
Who ever saw his old clothes, his old
coat, actually worn out,
resolved into its primitive elements
so that it was not a deed
of charity to bestow it on some pooj
boy, by him perchance to
be bestowed on some poorei
still, or shall we say
richer, who could do with less? I say,
beware of all enterprises
that require new clothes, and
not rather a new wearer of
clothes. If there is not a
new man, how can the new
clothes be made to fit? If you
have any enterprise before
you, try it in your old clothes. All
men want, not something to
do with, but something to do>
or rather something to be.
Perhaps we should never procure
a new suit, however ragged
or dirty the old, until we have so
conducted, so enterprised
or sailed in some way, that we feel
like new men in the old,
and that to retain it would be like
keeping new wine in old
bottles. Our moulting season, like
that of the fowls, must be
a crisis in our lives. The loon
retires to solitary ponds
to spend it. Thus also the snake casts
its slough, and the
caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal
industry and expansion;
for clothes are but our outmost
cuticle and mortal coil.
Otherwise we shall be found sailing
under false colors, and be
inevitably cashiered at last by our
own opinion, as well as
that of mankind.
We don garment after
garment, as if we grew like exoge-
nous plants by addition
without. Our outside and often thin
and fanciful clothes are
our epidermis, or false skin, which
partakes not of our life,
and may be stripped off here and
there without fatal
injury; our thicker garments, constantly
worn, are our cellular
integument, or cortex; but our shirts
are our liber, or true
bark, which cannot be removed without
girdling and so destroying
the man. I believe that all races
22 THE WRITINGS OF THOREAU
at some seasons wear
something equivalent to the shirt. It is
desirable that a man be
clad so simply that he can lay his
hands on himself in the
dark, and that he live in all respects
so compactly and
preparedly that, if an enemy take the town,
he can, like the old
philosopher, walk out the gate empty-
handed without anxiety.
While one thick garment is, for most
purposes, as good as three
thin ones, and cheap clothing can
be obtained at prices
really to suit customers; while a thick
coat can be bought for
five dollars, which will last as many
years, thick pantaloons
for two dollars, cowhide boots for a
dollar and a half a pair,
a summer hat for a quarter of a dol-
lar, and a winter cap for
sixty-two and a half cents, or a
better be made at home at
a nominal cost, where is he so
poor that, clad in such a
suit, of his own earning, there will
not be found wise men to
do him reverence?
From Walden;Economy
!
ምንም አስተያየቶች የሉም:
አስተያየት ይለጥፉ